


where to entrust this body, this soul?

by ioncehadabrain



Category: Naruto
Genre: F/M, Freeform, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-24
Updated: 2018-04-24
Packaged: 2019-04-27 04:24:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14417619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ioncehadabrain/pseuds/ioncehadabrain
Summary: It is, all in all, an apt discussion of horseshit and youthful pain.





	where to entrust this body, this soul?

_“一口气不来, 向何处安身立命?”_

_Now that the next breath won't come anymore, where to entrust this body, this soul?_

* * *

Do you want to know what a piece of horseshit looks like, Lee?

Oh, I know what they look like, watch your youthful steps there, Tenten, take it easy. I do know what horseshit looks like.

But this is a very special piece. A particular one, a peculiar one. More peculiar than most in the universe, I dare say. Oh, youthfully peculiar, Lee.

I have never seen a youthful piece of horseshit, I have to say.

Yes, so do you wanna know what it looks like?

You tell me, Tenten.

It looks like ... very bony hands, soon probably won’t have any flesh and tissues clung to their frame, and blood is definitely gone now, so there’s only bones. And because the flesh is wasting away real fast, you won’t get to see the ridiculously pale porcelain skin like a china doll, either. And the hair, too. Silky, always, by some obscene forces’ miracle, never tangled, never dried. More than once or twice soaked in blood, it ain’t a pretty scene, but that hair is still pretty. Was, because right now the strands must have blended thoroughly into and become dirt. A piece of horseshit six feet under in the dirt, Lee.

A piece- oh, oh, here. Careful, here, I’ve got your braids. We should- Are you feeling better now? Do you wanna wipe your mouth on my sleeves?

No, Lee, I wipe my own mouth with my own damned sleeves.

Okay. Okay then- oh, we are back to walking?

I feel dizzier than before, how is this possible?

We’re gonna get you home.

Ridiculous, not unlike that piece of horseshit.

... Yes, ridiculous, quite.

He’s not exactly a piece of horseshit, though, sometimes he could be really nice, too. Emotionally repressed bastard. But what else could he have done about it? That whole house is constipated and incapable of consistency between the life of the soul and their facial muscles, save for Hinata-san, though. He for one could at least pull a spectacularly disgusted expression at sensei’s onesie, and your piggyback offer.

Gai-sensei’s jumpsuit is the symbol of youth, Tenten, I have told you and him so many times. And mine is an offer of eternal youthful rivalry and friendship! You and he together are always so adamant on being un-youthful to mine and sensei’s faces, Tenten, it hurts, did you know? But it is a youthful pain.

Oh dear Lee, “a youthful pain?”

Much like your headache right now, I bet. And your heartache.

Of all organs to ache in my body, my heart is certainly not one of them. You can only acquire a heartache if your heart is impaled, or something. Or if someone from that house shuts off the pressure points connected to the heart via either the heart meridian or the vessels. The monstrous damnation. Both you and I can testify, Lee, the experience is undoubtedly a pain, but is four thousand light-years away from being youthful.

But a youthful pain, Tenten. You only experience it because you have braced yourself and plunged full-force into something with passion, much like when you don’t give up on training even though you could use a ten-day collapse after your first time doing a hundred laps around Konoha.

Yes, because I so plunged headfirst and full-force into that evil hollow leg Yamanaka’s alcoholic circus show, and I faithfully shoved shots down my throat, even though I knew I would have to use a ten-day collapse in convalescence due to the hangover from a drinking game I was losing from the start cause I came back from a week-long mission of sheer labor exploitation and was not in any shape to take up a drinking challenge.

You also plunged headfirst and full-force into loving him, Tenten.

Oh, my lord. You got me there, Lee. I did. I fucking did. I brilliantly fucking did.

Still do, I suppose?

I don’t- I want- I want it back. Back at him. I don’t need it, Lee. I don’t want it. I can’t stand it.

Youthful pain. The thing about youth is that you will get hurt, and you fall, but in youth, you learn to get up again and you fight back.

You will endure, you will survive.

You do know it, Tenten.

But when will it be over? This throbbing bullshit. Ow, I think my stomach is twisting into nine directions in boiling acid again.

Steady your pace, we’re almost there.

By the time I’m home and drop gorgeously unconsciously, this stomachache is gonna fade into limbo. By the time Gai-sensei’s home, a fortnight from now, so will this headache, perhaps. But the- youthful pain? I don’t know, Lee. I feel like my chances with this are no different from a piece of horseshit.

You’ll get there. I trust that you can.

Aw. God, did I just say “fortnight” like him instead of two weeks like a normal humble human being?

It’s what “fortnight” means?

See. I know you have faith in me. And sensei, too. But I just can’t say the same for myself.

.

.

.

_I just can’t say the same for myself._

Home is in sight, Lee is walking with me, Gai-sensei is coming home to us, Konoha is a broken pillar and spring is here. Soon the pomelo trees would bloom, a nebula of white, and in my lungs, in my veins, on my hair, I will carry the scent.

But here I am, incense lit, hands clapped together in hope that through the veil of the thousand-year smoke, you would see me, a faint breath outside the realm you reside in now.

When you shed that one last breath, Neji, in that moment, where did you go? If I go there, would I feel it, the last trace of your will, an echo of your soul?

You are gone so thoroughly now, I can never again feel your presence by my side.

It pains me endlessly.


End file.
